The Revenge by Tijan

Fear.

I narrowed my eyes. Was he scared of Calhoun? Of me?

He was looking right at me, but while I was tracking every iota of emotion that might be showing on his face, he was thinking. I couldn’t tell about what, but I felt it. He was calculating, and a second later, his eyes took on a distant look. He began to speak, his voice sounding from afar.

“I can see that I need to change my options here. I’d been prepared for your girlfriend to search me, and that fact and the history she would pull up would vouch for me. Or vouch enough where you might be inclined to trust me.”

I waited.

He stopped speaking.

My turn. “Did you grow up with him?”

His eyes refocused, centering on me. They cleared, as if a wall fell away. He frowned. “You really haven’t investigated me.”

“There’s reports he has sent teams to search for something. Am I wrong to assume that ‘something’ is you?”

His mouth tightened. A vein stuck out from his neck, his pulse beating visibly. “I would assume so.” Another frown from him. “Perhaps. I’m not sure. He’s lost quite a few of his assets, all of those being stripped from him by you. So they could be searching for me, or he might think I’m still where I usually go to get away from him.”

“And that is?”

“I have people in Thailand I care about.”

“People he knows about?”

Another tic from him. That vein was now sticking out from the side of his jaw. And it was bigger, pulsing harder.

“No,” he bit out. “I wish that to remain that way.” He hissed those last words, and to the untrained professional, it would seem as if I had something on him. This should give me a sense of power, where I could get comfortable. Then I would relax. I would dangle that threat above his head, issue my threats, and he would needle me. He would get information from me, and I would give it, almost gloating that I had that “thing” over him and I was deemed safe.

It was all a game.

I knew it. He knew it.

This is where I would need to “loosen” my strings. I would start getting arrogant. I would have to choose which information to “slip” to him. And then, when I left, feeling drunk on power, he would pull the string.

With all the shit that happened in my life recently, I didn’t have the energy to play.

“I don’t have time.”

He frowned, his eyebrows jerking forward before smoothing back out.

Now I knew how he looked when thrown off balance. I cataloged that in the back of my mind, because while he was testing me, stringing me along, I was learning how to read him.

His eyes flared.

His head reared backward, with enough force to make his chair scoot backwards, too. “You motherfucker.”

I gave him the slightest of grins, showing my teeth. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Our mother and the fucker who killed her.” I shoved up from the chair, starting to warm my arms up, then pulling each one across my chest and stretching it. I let them fall back to my side and shook them out, rolling my shoulders. “Were you the price she paid for freedom? Give up one of his kids and he’d have to let her go?”

He sucked in a hissing breath.

I began to circle around him, slowly at first, watching him the whole time.

He watched me as much as he could, his head twisting to find me as I passed behind him. He was cautious now. Wary.

Good.

I didn’t know this kid. I had no clue he existed, until my team found him, sent his existence to me, and a month later he’s breaking into my apartment. He was either a secret they unveiled or a weapon Calhoun planted. Either way, he was here and he was currently under my control.

I stopped and squatted in front of him. My arms were loose, my elbows resting on my knees, and I stared up at him from this position. Maybe it was time to start asking the hard questions.

“Who raised you?”

No flicker. No response.

His face was like granite.

Okay. Next one.

“Did you know our mother?”

He blinked this time, a slight wince, but he caught himself, covering his reaction. A second blink. And back to a face of impassivity.

One more. “Did you know our father?”

There was no reaction from that one.

“Calhoun had our aunt raped. Were you there?”

His shoulders jerked up, but nothing on his face.

“Did you hear her screams?” I didn’t wait. I pushed up and stood over him. “Because I did. Those tapes were sent to our mother. She listened to them, and I heard them, sitting outside her door.”

I walked forward. This was a risk, but I was going to take it.

I leaned down, getting into his space. My hands went to his armrests and I was right there, almost eye to eye.

“He tortured them both. Mentally. Physically. Sexually. Emotionally. He did it all, then he killed them both.”

His eyes were blazing. He tried, he struggled to put up his wall, but it slipped. He couldn’t keep it up, and he was glaring at me. He moved even closer to me, trying to get into my space, trying to make me uncomfortable.

“If you’re trying to figure out if I hate our grandfather, let me save you the trouble. I hate him. I have hated him all my life. I have dreamed about killing him, putting the knife in him, and I want to twist it, run it through the rest of him. Up his stomach, though his chest, and then turning, pushing it directly into his heart. And I would savor that moment, watching the life drain out of his eyes.” He paused, breathing harshly. His nostrils were flaring. “If I had the power, I’d bring him back from the dead only to do it all over again. You didn’t grow up under his thumb. I did. If you want a tutorial on torture tactics, I’m the one who should be giving it to you.”